FROM first-time poets to four-time slammers, the Swindon Poetry Slam – a staple of the Festival of Literature calendar - had it all on Saturday night.

Now in its 20th year, the night was hosted, as ever, by the eccentric Sara-Jane Arbury who was accompanied for the first time by former Swindon Slam competitor Steve Rooney.

The rules were simple – five heats of three poets, the winner of each heat and the highest scoring runner up would go through to a semi-final round from where the two highest scorers would move on to the final.

The audience were treated to a diverse range of subject matter delivered in styles ranging from light-hearted comedy to dark searching introspection – oh, and a rap about grandmothers.

But it was clear from early on that laughs were going to win over on this occasion - a rhythmic journey through the complexities of ordering coffee in the modern day and an ode to a beautiful library book littered with sexual innuendo made sure of that.

Unbeknown to them at the time, the crowd were given an early glimpse of the two poets who would contest the final as Al Brunker went up against Joy-Amy Wigman in a close first round heat – Al took the win and Joy-Amy clinched the highest scoring runner up spot.

The same pair were clearly the standout performers in the semi-finals, scoring an impressive 260 points each.

Al’s semi-final effort was perhaps the performance of the night, his rant about hi-vis jacket wearing apparatchiks – delivered in character while wearing a hi-vis jacket – was alarmingly accurate, wonderfully funny and was met with rapturous applause from the audience.

Going into the final the odds were probably leaning slightly in his favour following two fantastic performances to this point but Joy-Amy Wigman was certainly not going down without a fight.

Her animated tale of the trials and tribulations of fending off the advances of a young man while keeping her integrity and independence intact was arguably her best showing of the night.

As the judges’ scores were counted it would be fair to say that nobody in the audience would have bet on who was going to win, it was really that close.

In the end it was Al Brunker who came out on top, just, with 260 points to Joy-Amy’s 256.

The finalists walked away with bottles of bubbly, and the audience with smiles on their faces – the Swindon Slam delivered, as it always does.